Here, there and everywhere

Wallington Station: it doesn’t have a lot going for it, but then perhaps it doesn’t need to. It’s the place you pass through in order to get somewhere else, as long as the somewhere else you are going is one of a strictly limited number of places on a limited number of days. Its amenities are basic, though not wholly spartan. If it has any hidden beauty it’s so well concealed nobody has found it yet. Unlike St Pancras say, or even Morden Tube, Wallington Station has nothing to recommend it from the outside; unlike Blackfriars with its magnificent outlook over the city of London from the middle of the Thames it has no spectacular view to help you wile away the moments till your delayed conveyance arrives, unless you count a commanding view of Wallington High Street as a sensational sight, in which case, have you thought of getting out more?

Now I think I can get away with this dissing of the local locale, because, I mean, yes it’s in Wallington, but, look at it. Even the various architects who had their hands in getting the station to where it is today would be hard pressed to love their work. They clearly found it difficult to generate any enthusiasm when they were designing it so they’re unlikely to have developed a passionate fondness since. I presume the reason everybody arrives no more than a minute before their train arrives crowding out a platform previously empty apart from me, is because Wallington Station is a destination of no perceptible value other than as a place to pass through in order to get to somewhere else, somewhere, presumably, better. 

And yet

Our sermon today starts in the heart of anonymous functionality, at Wallington Station, on the westbound platform, waiting for a train to take me to London Bridge for some exciting engagement at Diocesan Headquarters and as I was early as usual I had lots of time to take in the surroundings, which, where I was sat, was the back of Travis Perkins, who is not a person, but a builder’s merchants on Ross Parade. As a view, TP’s back wall is pretty much on a level with Wallington Station- same architects perhaps?- but in front of the edifice’s rear was a tree,  a London plane. Plane trees are common and as woody things go unremarkable, though they do have particularly unappealing fruit: wholly inedible and, viciously,  designed to injure. So, last October, that was my view: an everyday tree in front of an unremarkable wall. 

You might think at this point I would have reached into my pocket, found my phone and started listlessly thumbing it; or resolved never to be this early for a train ever again; or walked a few yards up the platform to see if there was anything worth watching on the High Street, which there never is.  

Instead, I stayed looking at the Travis Perkins Tree, struck with the thought. ‘What a juxtaposition! The work of humanity and the work of God, side by side, compared and contrasted.’ 

Trees are everywhere, we mostly don’t notice them unless they’re dropping their leaves, fruit, buds and other effluvia in our garden and yet, what astounding things they are. Each tree has a design of staggering complexity. No tree is exactly the same— the arrangement of branches, leaves. twigs, pirouetting together in an impossibly intricate arboreal sarabande. My previous parish was dedicated to holy hippy St Francis, I’m allowed to speak like this about trees.

Now admittedly, a builders yard is unlikely to ever be the height of human architectural achievement, but as a backdrop to the tree it was like a child’s fridge picture hung next to a Caravaggio; infantile daubs next to a masterpiece, a toddler hitting the keyboard before Mozart takes to the stage.

We could I suppose, if we wanted, try to build something like the plane tree. Gothic architecture– you’re sitting in some– is an attempt to reflect the natural world in hewn stone; perhaps Gaudi’s confections come closest to the exuberant complexity of the simplest of the natural world, but our attempts at building a tree would be at most simple and at worst hideous caricature. Our best bids would shrivel to nothing compared to one of God’s most mundane creations.

I think it will be some time, if ever, before Wallington Station becomes a place of pilgrimage; the point of this lengthy panegyric to a plane tree is that anything can speak to us of God. If we stop to consider, we can notice God in the everyday things of life, because all creation speaks of its creator, the artist’s signature is always visible if you take the time to look. Anything can speak to us of God. You, me, my dog; plane trees, yew trees, walnut trees; mountains, rocks, beaches;   blue skies, grey skies, dark skies; cold bright days, cloudy days, sunny days and, of course, summer fruit.

You were listening, I know, but I’ll just remind you of the OT reading:

This is what the Lord God showed me– a basket of summer fruit. He said, “Amos, what do you see?” And I said, “A basket of summer fruit.” Then the Lord said to me,

“The end has come upon my people Israel;
I will never again pass them by.

The songs of the temple shall become wailings in that day,”

In Hebrew there is a pun here: the word for ‘summer’ sounds like the word for ‘end’. However, it doesn’t really alter the premise that anything can speak to us of God, and for the biblical prophets, fruit seemed to be quite vocal in this regard. Not only did Amos see disaster in the raspberries, so did Jeremiah, who also had a run in with figs, a fruit which seem figure prominently in the prophetic imagination.  

Incidentally, this is why fig rolls are the worst kind of biscuit: not only are they worryingly soft and taste vaguely medicinal, there’s always the suspicion that if you open a packet you might end up the medium for a message of woe from above. 

Milk? Just a little. 

Sugar? No thank you. 

Biscuit? The end has come this land. 

Off he goes again; every time we invite him for tea.

Think back over some of the Gospel readings you’ve heard through the years. If you’re fairly new to this church stuff, don’t worry, you’ll hear them all soon enough. 

‘Are figs gathered from thorns?’ 

By their fruit shall you know them.

‘ From the fig tree, learn its lesson’

Learn to read the signs of the times.

Jesus sees one of his first followers Nathaniel reclining underneath a fig tree. There is the parable of the fig tree which, producing no fruit, its owner wants to chop down; his gardener wins it a reprieve while he tries to encourage it to crop. And most dramatically of all, Jesus goes to a fig tree looking for fruit and finds none; he curses the tree and it withers.

Clearly, fruits are symbolic; it’s not that particular tree or that particular bowl of cherries that figures. Fruit in general are ripe metaphors. Summer fruits are appealing but  quickly rot; their sweetness does not last. In the scriptural imagination fruit represents a person’s response to God’s law, God’s word, God’s calling; how they live their life, how they turn to the Lord, whether they have truly got the message and acted accordingly.

As I’m sure I’ve said before if a gooseberry starts talking to you, it’s probably not God. But, that said, anything can speak to us of God.

Noticing God in the world doesn’t have to be scary and to be fair, the prophets were probably rather pleased when they saw strawberries and God pronounced destruction, because it meant that God was acting and something good was about to happen because, by definition, if God does it, it must be good.

Noticing God in the world doesn’t have to be scary; nor does it have to be portentous or ominous or momentous.  It might just be a small message (‘I’m here’). Still important, but not scary. 

And we can all train ourselves to notice and so we can all be prophets. Even the most unlikely of us, in the most unlikely places, seeing the most unlikely things; we can all be prophets. The message from God might only be for us; very few are called like Amos away from their sheep and sycamore trees to announce the fate of nations. But God’s message is written on his creation, his handiwork wherever we turn, the divine signature inscribed everywhere and, made in God’s own image, we should be singularly able to see it.

So, keep your eyes open, your ears open, you mind open. God  is everywhere and speaking his message to you.